Fishwrap finally reports on courageous Norma Jean Coon

Remember Norma Jean Coon?  She is the courageous woman who repudiated her simulated “ordination” in the wymynpryst thingie and has cut all her ties with the wymin, as she works with the CDF for the lifting of the excommunication she incurred.  WDTPRS admires what Mrs. Coon is doing.  We wrote about her HERE.

We talked about this here about a month ago.  Now, however, National Catholic Fishwrap has set their cub-reporter Zoe Ryan in the Intern on this story.  Fishwrap reports that the wymymnenne say that … well… Mrs. Coon wasn’t really very involved very much anyway and suggest that perhaps she wasn’t very stable.

The Fishwrap, as you know, is a promoter of the ordination of wyymymnnm.

Here are some of the best lines from the Fishwrap damage-control piece.

“The Vatican labels the ordination of women in the Catholic church as a grave offense and participants are excommunicated latae sententiae, or automatically.”

Remember, it’s not nice to “label”!

Zoe the Fishwrap Intern paints the wimnym as understanding and cooperative.  The article suggests that Coon wasn’t all that stable because of other burdensome things going on in her life and they  just want to “help her follow her conscience”.

Riiiiight.

“The program is individualized for each person and includes an intake clinical interview and psychological screenings, among other things.”

I imagine the “other things” include walking with thoughtful expressions around on mazes.

“Because women’s ordination is not allowed in the Catholic church, those who participate in ceremonies confront conflict within the church.”

It is not allow because it is IMPOSSIBLE and it isn’t “within”.  That’s why doing it shows that you are “outside”.

For these wymmnmyn it’s all about individual conscience.  You choose what you want to do regardless of whether or not the Church has something to say about it.

“We remain ordained Roman Catholic Womenpriests who continue to follow our informed consciences and, simply put, obeying God trumps obeying the pope.”

No, dearie, you aren’t.

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33 Comments

  1. beez says:

    Clearly, they are obeying the Spirit of the Pope as they understand it.

  2. APX says:

    It is not allow because it is IMPOSSIBLE

    My Women’s Studies prof brought up the whole wymynpryst thingie in class a couple weeks ago. Let me just say, trying to explain why it’s impossible for women to be priests did not go over well. People get offended by the truth way too easily.

  3. wmeyer says:

    It is sad, indeed that so many fail to comprehend the clear teaching of the Church.

    Sadder still is that the Catechism has sold only some 8 million copies. But that helps in understanding the rampant confusion and ignorance of Church doctrine.

  4. Bornacatholic says:

    … obeying God trumps obeying the Pope.

    Hmmm, where have I heard that before?

  5. jaykay says:

    “…those who participate in ceremonies confront conflict within the church.”

    What does this actually mean? Their syntax is as twisted as their… oh, never mind.

    Anyway, I saw on Rorate Coeli that Ms. Coon is currently attending the FSSP. When she comes back, she REALLY comes back :)

  6. Centristian says:

    “We […] continue to follow our informed consciences and, simply put, obeying God trumps obeying the pope.”

    Mmm-hmm. I’ve heard that one before. It’s amazing how much the far right and the far left have in common sometimes.

    I never fail to bristle at the use of the word “Catholic” in “National Catholic Reporter”; it’s so misleading. One would imagine by such a title that NCR is actually a faithfully Catholic publication. The fact is that the contributers to NCR so frequently demonstrate such a disdain for what the Church actually is that I sometimes wonder why they remain Catholics. An entire newspaper published by Catholics for the simple purpose, it seems, of endlessly trashing their own Church. Mystifying.

  7. MichaelJ says:

    obeying God trumps obeying the pope

    As soon as I read this, I knew that some would pounce on it. For those that chose to do so, please tell me, once and for all, whether the above statement is true or false.

  8. jaykay says:

    Michael J:

    There’s no “once and for all” about it, although one could say that in general obeying the Pope IS obeying God since obedience is a virtue and we have to practice it. Clergy swear to be obedient to their superiors (how many of them obviously don’t live up to this!). However if the Pope were demonstrably in serious error then one would not be bound to obey him.

  9. stuart says:

    For those that chose to do so, please tell me, once and for all, whether the above statement is true or false.

    Of course obeying God trumps obeying the Pope, in the same way that upholding the Constitution trumps obeying the President. The Constitution, however, gives the President certain powers that make obeying the President and upholding the Constitution one in the same. Even where the President exercises powers not granted to him by the Constitution there are channels for his removal. One cannot, however, appoint one’s self to Congress. There are rules and regulations that must be followed, and certain people cannot be in Congress. People insisting that they are Congresspeople despite not being citizens of the United States are not upholding the Constitution and cannot reasonably claim to be doing so, despite their conscience informing them that they should be Congresspeople.

    It’s an imperfect analogy, but it works.If the Pope says “go kill your neighbors and desecrate the nearest Church,” then to obey his command would be to disobey God. Obeying God would trump obeying the Pope. Unless such a command is issued by the Vatican, however, obeying God and obeying the Pope are one in the same.

    Moreover, these women “priests” are not just disobeying the Pope, as if Pope Benedict is the one who put the kibosh on women’s ordination. They are disobeying two-thousand years of Church teaching, which, if you are Catholic, is believed to have been inspired by God.

  10. benedetta says:

    Another fishwrap/python moment…”We’ve found a witch…!”

    And do the “womynpriests” really and truly “confront conflict in the Church”? Totally hilarious. What they really do is, surround themselves with, well, themselves, and exalt each other, elite and separated from the real world, ensconced and apart. Now, what faithful Catholics attempt to do every day in the real world, that is the courageous struggle, that is immersion.

  11. Centristian says:

    “As soon as I read this, I knew that some would pounce on it. For those that chose to do so, please tell me, once and for all, whether the above statement is true or false.”

    Since God rarely gives direct verbal commands to His people these days, how do you suppose we obey Him apart from obeying the Apostles and their successors to whom Christ has endowed with the government of His Church?

    How do the Womenpriests suppose that they are obeying God by disobeying the Pope? Did God appear to them at one of their meetings and say “I want women priests, ladies, so disregard the pope and do it!” These individual women know what God’s will is but Christ’s Church has it all wrong?

    How do they, how does anyone, discern the will of God apart from the Church Christ established?

  12. Brad says:

    I find this amusing:

    “The program is individualized for each person…”

    They left is so p.c. that even when ultra-feminists are talking about a group of women, they won’t stop with the gender-neutered terminology. As if a man had sneaked into the pool of candidates and they had to allow for him, grammatically?

    But then again, I loathe the use of “they” when referring to one man or woman, so I always spot it a mile off.

  13. asophist says:

    It is difficult, sometimes, to obey. It is often difficult to recognize and perform the duties of one’s state in life. That said, willful disobedience of the most egregious kind in a matter so grave, coupled with a denial of one’s duties of state, are the attributes of a spoiled child. The “spoiled child” syndrome became pandemic in the 1960’s. Those who came of age in that era most often have this disease. Unfortunately, they have organisms (like NCR) which act as hosts to continue the spread of the contagion.

  14. Martial Artist says:

    MichaelJ,

    Intending no disrespect to you, but the proffered argument, i.e., “obeying God trumps obeying the pope” is a faulty analysis of the issue. It isn’t the Pope who is making this decision, it is the Church. If one is, or is attempting to be, a faithful Catholic, one strives to obey the Church, particularly the teachings of the ordinary and extraordinary magisteria. This further requires that we attempt to “think with the Church” (sentire cum ecclesia). When we find a teaching that is difficult for us to accept we need prayerfully to enter into that mode of thinking with the Church. To the degree that I, a new Catholic, understand her, the Church is Christ’s gift to us (his disciples) to be the faithful interpreter of the Holy Spirit and to propose truth, both reasoned and revealed. If I decide that I, acting by myself, can discern the leadings of the Holy Spirit, I have abandoned the protection offered by heeding the discernment of the Christ’s Church. My obligation as a Catholic, when anyone in the Church expounds an authoritative magisterial teaching which I have difficulty understanding, agreeing with, or complying with, is to think with the Church. Only by doing so can I hope to be protected from error. If I discern that I am called by God to a certain work, whatever vocation that might be, but do not submit that discernment to the discernment and judgment of the Church, I am being Protestant, not Catholic. Were I to find myself doing so, personal integrity would require that I separate myself from the Catholic Church.

    What these women are saying is that they, probably both individually and collectively, have discerned vocations, but they have not submitted them to the Church. This is doubtless because they know what the Church teaches, and has done for almost two millenia. It isn’t about the Pope (except for the fact that he is that person chosen to be Her voice), it is about conforming oneself to the magisterial teachings of Holy Mother Church.

    Their false characterization is nothing more than a rhetorical trick designed to confuse the issue. Your challenge, to wit

    please tell me, once and for all, whether the above statement is true or false

    simply demonstrates that you have been misled by their duplicitous slogan.

    Pax et bonum,
    Keith Töpfer

  15. MichaelJ says:

    Perhaps I was too subtle. I did not intend, by my question, to come to the defence of “womenpriests”. Instead, my intent was to highlight flawed logic.

    The “logic” in this case was that “if it can be demonstrated that some draw false conclusions from a principle, the principle itself is false and that other conclusions derived from this same principle are also false”.

  16. Banjo pickin girl says:

    Centristian, your rhetorical questions are all answered by Protestants with the one word “conscience.” John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote well on the subject both before and after his conversion.

  17. Bornacatholic says:

    Yes, the liberal liberals and the liberal traditionalists both claim that in disobeying the Pope they are really obeying God although I must admit I can’t remember in Scripture, Tradition, or Magisterial Teaching, where that putative precept is taught.

    But, it is not an idea without a pedigree; it was an idea famously advanced by one Martin Luther and it is an idea reflective of the fact that one has lost the Faith; but, rather than admit that it is much easier to accuse the Pope of sin, or heresy, and taking decisions that oppose the will of God, which, is a rather odd charge to make because Jesus taught (Matt 16; 18,19) that the decisions taken by the Pope would be ratified in Heaven.

    Now, imagine the Pope binding a Mons not to do something. Can a person claim that that binding was not also bound in Heaven?

    If a person can deny that what the Pope binds is not bound in Heaven then he has taken upon himself the burden of trying to rationally explain how it is that God wills opposition to His Church He established.

    Good luck with that.

  18. I wonder if the fishwrap would be interested in a paper written by Fr. Ripperger FSSP, that clearly shows that women CANNOT be ordained!

    On Second thought, prolly not…

    http://catholicspiritualmotherhood.com/2011/03/12/father-chad-ripperger/

    God bless,
    Catherine

  19. AnAmericanMother says:

    How liberal of the fishwrap — accusations of insanity are the stock in trade of political liberals against those who disagree with them. They’d probably chuck poor Ms. Coon into an insane asylum if they thought they could get away with it.

    You’d think they’d be embarrassed to continue a tradition started by the likes of Stalin and the Communist Chinese. But no . . . . . . just proving once again that radical leftism is their religion, not Catholicism.

  20. MikeJ9919 says:

    Even the headline is heretical: “Woman deacon recants”

    Even though Ms. Coon correctly began with: “I wish to renounce the alleged ordination”

  21. TNCath says:

    Well, it’s not surprising they would spin this story in this manner. I’m surprised they finally got around to covering it.

  22. Father Flores says:

    I imagine the “other things” include walking with thoughtful expressions around on mazes.

    I seriously guffawed when I read that.

  23. Trad Tom says:

    OK, someone help me out. Did I dream it or did I read somewhere (0n a blog or elsewhere) that Kansas City Bishop Finn “took over” the Fishwrap, firing most of the editorial staff (but keeping the “fair and ubiqutous” John Allen) ? I know it is not the official newspaper of the diocese (Thanks be to God!), but can the Bishop put a stop to it? Did he?

  24. Mrs. O says:

    Ok. They are consistent with their deformed conscience and wrong, of course. They also think that trumps the pope overlooking the face that no vir, no valid ordination no matter what.
    Will keep praying.
    But I will still keep asking those who quote this newspaper (Bps) in favorable way, why?
    (no red today I see :0))

  25. Jack007 says:

    Tom, its a private entity outside of diocesan control. Its all about the First Amendment.

    Now, it may be that our beloved Bishop Finn has had such a dream, once or twice. LOL

    Fear not, the NCR will not be around much longer. The newsprint is on the wall. :-)

    Jack in KC

  26. Pater, I think there is more to the Norma Coon story that NCRep let on, and I know there is more to how they told the story. In short, it happened again! Folks can go here if interested: http://canonlawblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/norma-jean-coon-excommunication.html. Best, edp.

  27. sorry, typo: THAN NCRep let on, not THAT NCRep let on.

  28. MichaelJ says:

    Yes, the liberal liberals and the liberal traditionalists both claim that in disobeying the Pope they are really obeying God although I must admit I can’t remember in Scripture, Tradition, or Magisterial Teaching, where that putative precept is taught.

    As others have pointed out, these people are using a sound principle, but wrongly and incorrectly applying it. Scripture is full of warninga about false teachings. Among them are
    2 John 1:10, Matthew 7:15, Romans 16:17-18 and 2 Thessalonians 3:6. Now, nobody can obey God by disobeying the Pope, but if it comes down to an either/or proposition, then one must disobey the Pope. You may believe that it is not possible for the Pope to issue an unjust command, I do not know. History, however seems to show otherwise, and it seems odd, frankly, that Scripture would have warnings about events that could not happen.

  29. Mrs. Coon’s former allies expunged any reference to her as well as her “ordination” on their website.

  30. Jerry says:

    @Trad Tom

    OK, someone help me out. Did I dream it or did I read somewhere (0n a blog or elsewhere) that Kansas City Bishop Finn “took over” the Fishwrap, firing most of the editorial staff (but keeping the “fair and ubiqutous” John Allen) ?

    If JR Ewing was involved, it was probably a dream. Otherwise, it may have been this nice piece of satire from Angelqueen.org: http://tinyurl.com/4r97gb2

    A previous bishop of Kansas City did condemn NCR for heresy and request that they drop “Catholic” from their title – in 1968: http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00Cofv

  31. Bornacatholic says:

    Dear Michael The verses you cited do not refer to the Pope or The Church teaching falsely. There is not one word in Scripture even hinting at that idea.

    The Church is guided by The Holy Spirit which teaches all truth, it is the pillar and ground of truth, and if one does not hear it one rejects Jesus

    Mt 18; 17,18
    Lk 10:16
    Jn 14:16,26
    Jn 16:13
    1 Tim 3:15
    1 Jn2:27
    Acts 15:28
    Mt 28:20

    All of these Biblical Commentaries are online and available to be read for free:
    Catena Aurea
    Biblical Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide
    Haydock’s Catholic Bible Commentary

    and it might be helpful if you were to read the Commentaries about the verses you chose because they most certainly do not mean what you seem to think they mean

  32. MichaelJ says:

    The verses you cited do not refer to the Pope or The Church teaching falsely. There is not one word in Scripture even hinting at that idea.

    You are correct. None of the cited verses refer to the Pope . In fact, no verses anywhere in Scripture specifically refer to the Pope. As far as I know, the word “Pope” never appears anywhere.
    Instead, thes verses refer to false teachers and prophets from “among you”. You, apparently conclude that “among you” does not include His Holiness. You could be correct, but history does not seem to support your conclusion.

    The bottom line, and the only point of disagreement between us as far as I can tell, is that you seem to believe that the protection of the Holy Ghost, promised by Christ will prevent the Pontiff from ever issuing an unjust command or one that risks the Salvation of Souls. Simply put, I do not. His Holiness is infallible, not impeccable.

  33. Trad Tom says:

    Thank you, Jerry, on 17 March. Now I do remember reading that whole article on “Acts of the Apostasy.” I guess I had forgotten that is was beautiful satire, albeit wishful thinking on my part! I guess time will do them in soon. At least I hope so……

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